Functional Assessment

Functional assessment is a term that describes the process of evaluating the communication skills present in persons who have significant communication impairments. This degree of impairment typically has an adverse impact on a person’s ability to perform the activities of daily living. The word functional relates to the way that an entity or system works or operates to enact any specific activity, purpose, or task. When describing human performance, being functional connotes that an individual can complete activities, purposes, or tasks well enough for the performance to be practical or useful on a daily basis. A functional communication assessment documents how well an individual can perform practical communication activities, purposes, and tasks and reveals the extent to which the communication impairment imposes limitations on daily ...